


Eurydice

by gisho



Series: Silk Road [4]
Category: GetBackers
Genre: Mythological References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:33:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he leaves Lucifer's service, Toshiki finds himself following Kazuki home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eurydice

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal, as part of the 'getbacksubrosa' challenge.

\--

"What are you doing here?" Juubei said, and Toshiki should have been pleased to see Juubei as surprised as he was. Should have seen this coming, even so. The hallway seemed very large and dusty, and the doors of the young king's sanctuary were closed tight and silent.

Kazuki smiled.

\--

They had offered him a home. In the hospital, they had smiled at him and reassured him, and said that he was forgiven. Toshiki wanted desperately to believe them; he would not have forgiven himself.

The antiseptic smell of the place was what he remembered most. He had never been in a hospital before. He had smelled it long before he returned to consciousness; it invaded his nightmares almost as pervasively as the taste of blood. He was not sure for a long time what was dream and what wasn't. At one point he saw Kazuki and Juubei sitting on the windowsill, sillouted against the darkening sky. Kazuki was touching Juubei's cheek. You shouldn't have put yourself in danger, he said. Not for me. I'm not worth it.

Juubei bowed his head. He answered, I would go anywhere for you. I would follow you into Hell and carry you back out. Or stay there, if I could not.

You did, Kazuki said, and his voice was raw with unshed tears. Toshiki didn't like to hear it. You did. Oh, Juubei ...

They had kissed, then, and Toshiki had turned his face away and buried it in the pillow, and tried not to think of Orpheus's unsmiling lips. Juubei had followed Kazuki into the underworld, and brought him back with a song. For all Juubei's physical sightlessness, Toshiki was the blind one, that he had not realized what the ending had to be.

He sank back into fitful sleep and imagined a parade of all the people who had left him, one by one, passing by and leaving him again. None of them looked back, not even once. They vanished into the distance, and he tried to cry out after them but his throat was too dry to make a sound.

\--

Once, Raguel had asked Toshiki if he knew the story of Demeter and Persephone. "I don't know much mythology," Toshiki had answered. It was true enough, but he did know that one story.

Raguel had nodded, and not mentioned it again.

\--

The young king of Mugenjou had looked at him with eyes that reflected his computer screens, and Lucifer's kind of honesty. "Welcome," he said, formality tugging at his words into shapes that did not come naturally to them. "You honor me with your presence." Somewhere behind him Sakura had half-smiled, maternal pride lighting up her face. Toshiki had not been sure, then, whom she was proud of. His hands tightened on his folded knees; somewhere behind him were Juubei and Kazuki, and he could not see either of their faces.

Toshiki spoke quietly, carefully. "Thank you for offering me a place here."

"We can use all the help we can get." He had looked very young then, and very tired. Younger than the archangels, at least in years. "To come back here, even when you have no obligation and little reason, is quite noble of you. And deeply appreciated."

"I have no other place to go."

"Nonetheless. Welcome."

Kazuki, behind them, sighed and stepped forward. "Alright, you two," he said, in the kind of exasperated tone he had taken with Juubei and Saizou when they nipped at each other's heels. "You're both very grateful. You don't have to be so embarrassed about it." Toshiki risked a glance at the the young king; he was smiling a little. "Please. I think both of you have good reason to be pleased. Toshiki is a good man, Makubex. He'll serve you well. And Makubex is a good man to serve."

Toshiki did not know if he could serve someone he did not love, but he already admired the young king; the rest would come, or not, in time.

\--

Juubei reached out and touched Kazuki's cheek. Kazuki's eyes flickered down for a second before he caught Juubei's wrist in his hand. "I won't have you torn between two loyalties, Juubei," he said. Juubei was silent. "I said once I would only follow Raitei. Well, I've changed my mind. Makubex is a good man, and my place is at your side."

At that Juubei bowed his head. "My lord ..."

"Don't argue with me," Kazuki told him, very sweetly. "You left for my sake. I'll return for yours."

Toshiki might as well not have been there at all. He turned aside, and stood beside the door, waiting.

\--

On the fourth night, Juubei grew impatient and took Toshiki back to his own rooms, and his own bed. He almost had to drag the man; Toshiki had curled up outside MakubeX's sanctuary like a guard dog, and snapped when Juubei took him away. He was more comfortable there, and it was only right that he watch over his new master.

But Juubei said, "It's not good for you," and Toshiki opened his mouth, then shut it, and followed, sullen annoyance coming off him in waves almost as visible as the faint heatwaves coming off the pavement. He knew it, too.

There were no streetlights in Mugenjou, but the moon slanted through the windows; Juubei's rooms were high up in the building. Quieter, Toshiki imagined, and less obvious. He had not tried the lights. He lay on the other half of the futon and buried his face in a pillow that did not smell at all like Kazuki, and could not understand why. Juubei's breaths were even and comfortable.

He wondered what had happened in his absence, and whether it could be undone. For all that he had been jealous, for all that he resented Juubei's place in Kazuki's heart, it rendered him more uncomfortable to see them separated; it was like the difference between a stabbing wound and a pain in a phantom limb. Juubei did not seem to notice, but then Juubei's stoicism had concealed every feeling beyond protectiveness - jealousy, perhaps, or rage, or adoration - that he might ever have had. Toshiki knew he loved Kazuki still, because he had said as much. It was all he had said on the subject.

Kazuki's walking away, again, the second morning, had left not a trace of anger on his face.

Toshiki touched Juubei's cheek, and Juubei's eyes flickered in his dreams.

\--

The string-master's lips had been as cold as his hands. Toshiki had tried to warm him, but in the misty cold it was impossible. He gave him wine, and the other man had drunk it uncomprehendingly and been no warmer. He held him close, and only froze himself for a reward.

He did not remember being afraid, even when those eyes opened and there was nothing, nothing at all, that he could recognize.

\--

In the years since they last saw each other, Juubei acquired a phone. It seemed incongruous sitting there on the wall, white plastic and red blinking light, a strange intrusion of the modern world into a space otherwise as calmly traditional as it was possible for Mugenjou to be. The phone jack was some distance away, and someone had carefully stapled the cord to the wall.

Juubei never looked toward it, only touched it briefly, walking in. Toshiki didn't notice it at first. When he asked Juubei had shrugged, and said, "Cell phones don't always work here."

Toshiki hadn't asked for more. 

He found himself glancing at it from time to time, even as they sat together and did not speak of other matters. "I'm glad you're with us again," Sakura said to him, and offered him the teacup with both hands. He took it, with a murmur of thanks that owed nothing to conscious thought. Juubei said nothing. He was smiling, just a little. They took up three sides of the table, which had four sides; it was a fine old piece, and as out of place in Mugenjou as the calm, the quiet, the way Sakura sat, head bowed, expression composed.

"This is my home," he said. "I should never have left."

If there was implied censure in those words for their absent leader, Sakura let it go. "No, but you came back, and that's more important. Toshiki ... we're grateful. This is our home too, and we could never leave it." He imagines he can hear resentment in her voice.

"Why not? All you have to do is walk ten blocks."

"Because," Juubei said, "of what we would leave behind. You should know that, Uryuu."

Toshiki wanted to tighten his fist until the cup shattered and cut his hand. He didn't. "I do," he said. "That was cruel of me. I apologize."

"Don't," Sakura said. "It's just as well."

"That I can be cruel?"

"That one of us can say things none of us wish to think about." Sakura looked aside. It would be easy for her, very easy. She was young and likeable, and she could do things other than fight, and still be satisfied. If she bound herself to this place, she did so willfully. Sakura rested her hands against her stoumach and looked out the window; the last rays of sunlight were vanishing. Toshiki wondered how much she stayed for love and how much for duty, or if the two were even separate things in her mind.

Juubei reached across the corner of the table and took her hand in his. They did look alike, in this light.

"I'll try keep quiet," Toshiki said. "And maybe we can forget."

\--

He could not bear to watch without saying anything, but nothing he could say would change the ending. He whispered, "Have you already spoken to Makubex?"

"Yes, and he has agreed."

Kazuki looked at him warmly, and Toshiki's heart broke all over again. He should have been glad that Kazuki would be close again. He should have known better than to hope. "I'll find somewhere else to sleep, then," he said. They looked as though they wanted to protest, but neither of them voiced it. Instead Juubei reached out and patted Toshiki's shoulder; a brief, thoughtful gesture, meant for reassurance, a sop for a dog.

\--

Juubei found lunch for both of them, some kind of sweet-smelling, sticky roll from a street vendor. He took them without payment, only a brief nod, and handed one to Toshiki before he could protest. They kept walking side by side as they ate. He hardly tasted it, although he was glad for the sweetness; he thought it might be honey. The scene was too familiar, and he kept turning his head, expecting to see Kazuki there beside them, smiling his perfect smile.

Once the empty space would have turned the roll to ashes in his mouth, but it stayed sweet.

\--

He trailed behind them as they walked up through hidden hallways and stairways that only the young king's - initiates, for Toshiki understood that everyone who lived there could be considered his people - knew how to reach, or the significance of what lay at the end. The walls were concrete, simple and unyielding, so unlike the world outside; the lights flickered and sometimes did not come on at all, cast sickly shadows dancing over the walls.

The hallways seemed to go forever, although he knew that hallways had an end, always. He watched the shadows. There was nothing in them here. This was no paradise, but if it was hell it was at least the misty quiet of a restful sleep, without the violence that had stained their lives, the flames that still sometimes reflected in Kazuki's eyes, the pain that they breathed each day until they missed it in the brief intervals of open air.

Juubei and Kazuki walked hand in hand until the door opened before them to bright daylight, and they did not look back.

Not even once.

He closed his eyes as he stepped behind them into the street.

\---


End file.
